Members of the Brookfield High Class of 1954 are, seated left to right, Eleanor Hansley Laskey, Ann Vinski Stigliano and Margaret Callahan LaGuardia; and standing, from left, Marian Cerbus Halagan, Stan Lewis, Ronnie Wine, Valeria Verroco Reale, Bob Stefanovsky and Jim Obermiyer.

Members of the Brookfield High Class of 1954 are, seated left to right, Eleanor Hansley Laskey, Ann Vinski Stigliano and Margaret Callahan LaGuardia; and standing, from left, Marian Cerbus Halagan, Stan Lewis, Ronnie Wine, Valeria Verroco Reale, Bob Stefanovsky and Jim Obermiyer.

Nine members of Brookfield High School’s Class of 1954 got together on Sept. 6 for a reunion. To think that it had been 70 years since the members of the class graduated was hard to fathom for some.

“You wonder where it (time) went,” said Stan Lewis of Hermitage.

Lewis spent his post-high school time in the navy, working in a mill, managing a grocery store and managing Penngrove Village apartments in Hermitage, where the reunion was held. 

“I just can’t believe we’re all so old,” said Ann Vinski Stigliano of Hermitage.

Even though some of the classmates have been through serious health issues, “I think everybody looks so good,” said Valeria Verroco Reale of Naperville, Ill.

Reale, who worked in the accounting department of an insurance company, said she made sure every hair was in place before she ventured to the reunion. Looking good is a sign of her independence. 

“I’ve been very blessed,” Reale said. “I can do everything for myself. I do my own housework. I feel really blessed, because my kids don’t have to take care of me.”

Reale said she knows others have not been so fortunate, and she found the list of those who have passed on “so sad.”

Brookfield High graduated 104 in 1954. It was the school’s largest graduating class up to that time, and a close-knit group.

“We were all the same,” Reale said. “There were no wealthy kids. We were all blue-collar people. Parents worked in the mills.”

Reale grew up in Masury, living across the street from Addison School, which she attended from first grade through eighth.

Bob Stefanovsky of Brookfield also grew up in Masury, not far from Reale. He started delivering newspapers at age 5, working the route between the former Schuster’s on Brookfield Avenue to the Sky Club on Warren Sharon Road. He later worked at a golf course caddying and cutting grass and on a farm baling hay and milking calves until he became a bricklayer.

“It was a great place” to grow up, Stefanovsky said.

Stigliano came from a more rural setting.

“We lived in the country,” said Stigliano, who worked at Westinghouse in Sharon until she married Richard Stigliano, who owned Greenwood Pharmacies, and became a stay-at-home mom. “I could always hear the band playing at the football games. We couldn’t get out much, because we only had one car. We were home a lot. I loved getting together with our classmates and going to the games and the plays in school.”

Jim Obermiyer of Brookfield was one of those who acted in the school plays although, presented with a photo of himself in a play, he couldn’t recall the name of the play.

“Some fond memories,” said Obermiyer, who worked as a medical technologist at Trumbull Memorial Hospital. “I’m glad that I don’t have to worry about what parents have to worry about, school now, all the shootings that are going on. I enjoyed my school.”

Margaret Callahan LaGuardia of Broadview Heights, Ohio, grew up in a family enclave, with an aunt and uncle living next to her on one side of her home and and her grandparents on the other side. 

“I liked school,” said LaGuardia, a former school teacher. “I liked the activities that I got involved in. I think if a student gets involved in activities it’s much more meaningful to them.”

Ronnie Wine didn’t have the luxury of participating in many school activities. He worked a full-time mill job in his junior and senior years.

“My high school years, I didn’t participate in anything,” said the resident of Padre Island, Texas, a navy veteran whose various occupations have included co-owner of Wine Brothers Wrecking in Hubbard.

But, Wine doesn’t talk of having missed out on anything. He said he is grateful that he has been able to help with the success of successive generations.

“I’ve been very fortunate,” said Wine, who lied about his age to get the mill job. “All my kids got college degrees. All my grandkids got college degrees. We’ve done very well.”

Eleanor Hansley Laskey said her social life was not centered in Brookfield because her interests, dancing and roller skating, took her to places like Idora Park and the Elms Ballroom, both in Youngstown.

“I didn’t date anybody in my class at all,” said Laskey, a long-time cook and caterer. “I dated Sharon and Youngstown. That’s how I ended up in Youngstown,” where she now lives.

While all her dancing and skating friends have passed on, there still are members of her class around.

“It’s good to see everybody,” she said. “We look good.”

Reale said she always has felt blessed to have gone to Brookfield High School.

“I always enjoyed going to school and I loved my class,” she said.

Marian Cerbus Halagan also attended.

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